KARACHI: The London-based leadership of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement announced on Friday a 12-member interim coordination committee — nine members of which are based in Pakistan — in an attempt to regain organisational control which it almost lost following the Aug 22 incendiary speech of party founder Altaf Hussain.

As the Scotland Yard has formally dropped its money laundering investigation involving Mr Hussain and others, the much-relieved leadership is now focussed on fighting back to show its detractors, including the Dr Farooq Sattar-led MQM-Pakistan, that the “minus-one” formula would not succeed.

Dr Sattar-led MQM had dissociated itself from the party founder, removed his name from the constitution and flag and expelled the London-based convener Nadeem Nusrat and certain key leaders.

In retaliation, Mr Hussain had dissolved the coordination committee and all organisational wings and “appealed” to party legislators to quit their assembly seats and contest the election afresh since they had been elected in his name.

However, no parliamentarian belonging to the party, except MNA Sufyan Yousuf, paid any heed to the MQM supremo’s repeated calls to quit.

Later, Mr Nusrat sacked Dr Sattar and recently he also announced terminating the basic party membership of Amir Khan, Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Khwaja Izhar-ul-Hasan, MPA Faisal Subzwari and MNA Kishwar Zehra, who are now part of the MQM-Pakistan.

On Friday, the London-based leadership announced a parallel set-up — the interim coordination committee — after consulting senior party leaders.

Excluding convener Nusrat, three members living “overseas” are Wasay Jalil, Mustafa Azizabadi and Dr Nadeem Ahsan.

According to a statement released from London, the new committee includes Prof Dr Hasan Zafar Arif, Advocate Sathi Ishaq, Kanwar Khalid Younus, Amjadullah Khan, Ismail Sitara, Advocate Idrees Alvi and Momin Khan Momin, a Hyderabad-based senior politician who recently joined the MQM, as its members.

Two other Pakistan-based members are Ashraf Noor and Akram Rajput, who were recently expelled from the Dr Sattar-led MQM.

The names of other office-bearers, including members of the central executive committee, labour division, 26 towns of Karachi and organisational set-up of Hyderabad would be announced later, it said, adding that the organisational set-up of other zones in Sindh would remain unchanged.

As MQM-Pakistan is being run from its temporary headquarters in PIB Colony, sources said that the parallel set-up announced by the London-based leadership is aimed at taking “all possible options” to get control of the party’s Nine Zero headquarters, which has been sealed off after Mr Hussain’s Aug 22 speech, so that it could not be used by Dr Sattar-led party.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2016